Advisory Grant Thornton v Big 4 Audit

john 337

I have been offered advisory with GT and audit with 3 of the big 4. The advisory position sounds way more interesting and varied. However no masters and not Big 4. Long term wise would it be a mistake to accept this position? Also how much of a disadvantage is it to not do masters?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

themacdaddy

Well Grant Thornton are getting quite big and I think they will become one of the Big 5 in the next few years. IF you like the role and as they seem to be expanding there may be greater opportunites for promotions etc Obviously I could only guess that may be the case.

It is really up to you regarding the masters. I am sure your going to do the accountancy exams so they are superior to a masters. You will not get as many exemptions however without the masters.

I know from one close friend who failed one exam with one of the Big 4, he was let go very soon after.

Hope this helps. Jobs are hard to come by these days so your in a good position.

HeinekenTicket

Once you have done your professional exams, the masters makes no difference to anything. Get your exams and some decent experience and do an MBA or CFA in ten years' time when you will need to develop your skill set further. IMO, passing your professional exams first time will be more important than having done a masters.

If you don't get a big 4 offer now that you like, there are also likely to be post-qualification big 4 opportunities that will allow you to tick that particular box on your CV. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it now.

r.dunne7

My honest advice yo you is do what you think will benefit/enjoy the most, as the advisory position looks way more intresting i would tend to go for that.

Grant Thornton is the sixth biggest accountancy network in the world (after big 4 and BDO), so it is very well respected and well known.

In my opinion the big four is important to have in audit is because the majoirty of people training as CA are in that field. With a huge number of candites to choose from, saying that big four trained wanted is a quick method of miniming the numbers of applications they have to look at.

However for advisory roles, especially for CF or CRI , many of the roles jsut require x amount of experince. It really all about supply and demand, a corportae recovery and insolvency senior from a small firm who failed his exams 4 times can walk into the big four and start on about 55k, as he is in demand. Since advisory roles are a lot more difficult and scarse to get into, this means that there will be little competition.

Hope this makes sense to you, and my final words of wisdom would be to go into the role you proberly find more intresting, IN my opinion out of 10 people 8 people will say advisory is far more intresting than audit!

john 337

appreciate advice above.
Having talked to a few people they have said that the training got in Big 4 will stand to you indefinitely and as a result take the big 4 audit and then specialise later.
How much more difficult will it be to sit Cap 2 exams if working in advisory?
Also how much less p/a is salary in GT as opposed to big 4?

r.dunne7

john 337 wrote: »

appreciate advice above.
Having talked to a few people they have said that the training got in Big 4 will stand to you indefinitely and as a result take the big 4 audit and then specialise later.
How much more difficult will it be to sit Cap 2 exams if working in advisory?
Also how much less p/a is salary in GT as opposed to big 4?

Ha i think your mad, obviously audit big 4 is better than audit grant thronton,, but advisory gt is better than audit big 4.

There is a good chance that u wont enjoy audit big four, and all u really have is indusrty,

Its a lot harder going from audit into adviosry that advisory into audit!

CF is really good field to get into, most of the cf jobs never mention big 4 cause there are so few people who do it!

LightningBolt

It's not that much more difficult to pass exams if you're in one department over the other. Sure, the audit paper will be somewhat easier for you to pass if you're working in non-financial services audit.

If you're in financial services audit you've no advantage over someone in advisory from what I can see. Pass rates are largely similar, within my firm anyway.

When it comes to accepting Advisory versus Big 4 Audit I'd go with Advisory on the condition that it's a consulting/cri/cf role. If you're getting into I.T systems advisory roles (basically controls work) I'd be inclined to go with Big 4 audit. I know a fair few people in the IT side of things and the vast majority seem to dislike what they do. Based on their experience I'd rather go through a contract for three odd years and come out of it with a big 4 name doing audit than a top 6 name like GT.

That's no disrespect to GT, unfortunately you need to be thinking of what you want to do after a trainee contract and most recruiters look for big 4.

To sum up:

GT Advisory (CF/CRI/Consulting) trumps Big 4 audit

Big 4 Audit trumps GT (IT advisory roles)

r.dunne7

I would tend to agree with what you are saying lightning bolt, CF/CRI/Consulting is way better than audit big four.

But just wondering is audit big four so much better that top 6, i was the opinon that it was but then i started browsing job on irish jobs.ie and a lot of recruiters are asking for top 10 now instead of just big four, maybe the market is picking up.

Advisory roles tend to be much better that audit and you would be mad not to take it ( if its not IT system work casue that not great !

LightningBolt

Is big 4 audit better than top 6 audit? To those who are in the know, not really. You'll work on bigger clients for the most part but risk getting assigned to specific sections of a file as you progress through your contract with big 4 whereas you would be more likely to cover more of the file at an earlier stage of your contract with a top 6 firm. Of course, to a recruiter/potential employer, big 4 is an advantage mainly due to the brand name.

Training contract: unless you see yourself in accountancy long term, pick the firm that offers you the biggest clients to work with and a brand name that will ensure that you'll at least have a reasonably better chance of obtaining an interview over a non big 4 candidate. Given the worsening economic conditions in this country you'd be foolish to not do so.

I'll say it again, I've nothing against non big 4 trainees/accountants. If someone is going to come in I'd just advise at the present time to seriously think about what you plan to do after you finish your contract. If it's just to get the exams, go with the best firm that you've been offered.

If it's different departments between different firms, my last reply still stands.

Hope that's of some use to people.

r.dunne7

I agree with you, but surely in bog four firms not everybody works on large clients, i know a lot of people in big four who work on small clients. Recruiter and companies are in the no how and are aware of what you actually did, how would the FC who is going to hire you not know what you did in audit!

Only the lucky few that work for the large clients, have the big brand names on their C.V.

Who do you think their is any difference bewteen the big four and top 10!

A lot of recruiters dont mind anymore...! I dont hink there is actually any difference at all.

Do you mind me where u trained??? Audit or advisory lightning bolt!

cunning stunts

corporate finance snobbery and elitism really irritates me...

at the end of the day an aca is an aca...its up to the individual to make the most of their experience